Turkish government to implement chemical castration for child sex offenders

As the government tries to cover the problem by increasing the penalties, the rate of sexual crimes, sexual assaults, harassments and child sexual abuses has extremely increased during the rule of Erdoğan’s AKP party since the year of 2002

Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdağ on Sunday said that Turkish AKP government would be going ahead with plans for mandating chemical castration for those convicted of sex offences against children.

"We will be putting into effect the precaution of sexual castration in all its facets in the new term," Bozdağ said while speaking on the death of an eight-year-old girl who had been missing since June 22.

Eylül Yağlıkara went out to play with her friends on June 22 but never returned home.

When their efforts to find the girl failed, her parents informed the local gendarmerie of the situation. A number of soldiers, teams from the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) and a special unit had been dispatched to the area. The search and rescue operation continued for seven days on the ground and from the air.

On June 30, the body of the girl was found buried under an electric pole.

Initial medical reports suggest she was tortured, sexually abused, and strangled to death.

'THE ROLE OF EVER INCREASING REACTIONISM'

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) government has been considering this following increased public outcry over a string of sexual assaults against children over the past few years.

The Communist Party of Turkey (TKP) previously said in a statement, “We remind once again: child abuses and molestations cannot be prevented without unveiling their relation to the ever increasing reactionism in the last fifteen years. This rule that constantly attacks the women and children cannot prevent molestations. Reactionism cannot create social value!”

As the government tries to cover the problem by increasing the penalties, the rate of sexual crimes, sexual assaults, harassments and child sexual abuses has extremely increased during the rule of Erdoğan’s AKP party since the year of 2002. The rate of child abuse in Turkey increased by 700 percent in the last ten years in Turkey, according to a report on child abuse prepared by Prevention of Violence and Rehabilitation Organization.

CHEMICAL CASTRATION CANNOT DECREASE ABNORMAL SEXUAL BEHAVES

However, chemical castration, which involves using drugs to reduce libido, does not prevent a person from experiencing sexual urges indefinitely. Turkey introduced a measure to chemically castrate those convicted of sex crimes in 2016, but the country's highest administrative court, the Council of State, stopped its implementation last August, saying its definition and limit were "vague".

Moreover, the use of a medical practice would lead to many problems. As this method may reduce libido, it cannot decrease abnormal sexual behaves and sexual crimes since it reduces the crime to a medical problem. The definition of the case as a disease would further protect the offenders, ignoring the social, political and environmental factors behind the crime.

In April, the AKP government submitted a draft law to parliament regarding sex offences against children, including the introduction of chemical castration for such abuses. However, the categorization of children as below and over 12 violates the law since all individuals below 18 are defined as children.

The age division in child molestation stems from the government’s Islamic approach, considering that in Quran, the "age of marriage" coincides with puberty. Sharia laws do not have a marriageable age because there is no minimum age at which puberty can occur.